愛倫坡的哥德式房子是墮落世界的縮影。充滿犯罪和罪惡感的世界喚起人們回歸樂園的盼望。愛倫坡使用的主題有謀殺﹑磨難﹑腐敗和麻醉, 強調墮落世界裡心靈的黑暗。一個缺乏和諧﹑理性以及平衡的哥德式空間, 喚起走向脫離塵世的盼望。哥德式建築結合浪漫主義的死亡欲望。 死亡讓靈魂獲得自由。愛倫坡的主角經常在哥德空間裡與超自然的力量接觸。 痛苦使他們想脫離, 獲得自由和救贖。哥德世界的旅程不僅象徵監禁空間裡的旅程, 也象徵走向本我消滅和上帝的心靈之旅。愛倫坡故事中 “本我” 滅亡的主題呼應他在 Eureka的宇宙隱退的論點。我們可以在建築物的倒塌和靈魂的乖戾看出地球正在進行消失。宇宙正進行毁滅, 所有的星球將回歸宇宙的中心。愛倫坡認為毁滅物質的力量, 其實就是靈魂想走向中心合一的熱情。愛倫坡的靈魂熱情可以和佛洛伊德的 “生物推進力” 連結。佛洛伊德認為每個人按照既定的人生旅程, 走向死亡, 而且命運早已在生命開始的時候, 由身體內的化學物質結構決定個體發展的要素, 個體以 “後退” 的方式走向與 “原生命” 會合。如同深具墮落之謎的恐怖屋宅, 愛倫坡筆下的人物游移於瘋狂和病態的邊緣 (或者深受神祕力量的影響), 走向崩潰和死亡, 得到永恆的安寧。Poe’s Gothic house is a microcosm of a fallen world—a world of crime and guilt—that elicits the desire for destruction and eternal rest. Poe uses themes of murder, trial, decay, and intoxication to emphasize the darkness of the psyche in the fallen state. In the space that lacks harmony, reason, and balance, the desires for self-destruction are evoked. Poe combines a Gothic house with the themes of self-destruction and a death wish.Gothic architecture is characteristic of stone buildings—the Egyptian pyramids, the Druid’s Stonehenge, and Solomon’s Temple—that have elements of loftiness and terror. Poe’s Gothic house is an imaginary space open to the abyss at the apocalyptic moment. Its interior space is dark and womb-like, and the spires suggest spiritual aspiration.Poe’s protagonists in the Gothic space create their own supernatural realm or encounter the uncanny. The journey in the Gothic space symbolizes not only a journey in a confined space, but also a journey in a psychic space for the dissolution of the ego and the return to nothingness (the abyss). The idea of the destruction of the ego in Poe’s tales corresponds to the theory of the recession of the universe in Eureka. Collapses of buildings and the perverseness of the psyche reflect that the Universe is undergoing a catastrophe with the return of all planets to the center. Poe identifies the power of destruction in materials with “the spiritual passion” for nothingness. This passion can be associated with “organic impulses” assumed by Sigmund Freud: every organism follows its own path towards death, a predestined destiny determined by the chemical structure formed in the beginning of the life, and regressively develops itself in its repetitive encounters with “The Original Thing.” As Poe’s haunted house bears the mystery of decadence, his characters on the brink of madness and illness push themselves (or are pushed by the uncanny) towards decomposition and ultimate dissolution for eternal rest.